Euphoria Is Painful

iii. Allegiance

The voice made her freeze

It wasn't like they had threatened her or anything but Lily was still fearful of vampires. Well, except for the one that kept her warm at night.

She frantically looked around, completely forgetting about communicating with them. It seems like this had turned into a habit of her as of recent.

"C'mon, we're bored. Some human talk might be fun."

She reluctantly approached them and sat next to a man who was patting the seat next to him.

"So, what's your name?" She hurriedly took her paper and scribbled her name on it.

"Lily. That's a pretty name. But why write it?" The female vampire beside him elbowed him and sighed.

"Maybe she can't speak, Leon. Aren't I right?" She glanced at Lily and she nodded hesitantly.

"I had heard about you. Some human maids were talking about a dumb girl who couldn't talk and that they found her annoying. That's a big pile of shit. I really wonder how humans find ways to hate literally anything for the dumbest of reasons. Don't let that bother you. The idea of hating someone because they can't speak definitely is one of the stupidest things I've heard in my 60 years of life."

Lily was surprised. It felt comforting. A vampire was lifting her spirits while humans were pummelling them to the ground. Humans really were not a united species.

"It seems like we've got a new companion in our midst. Now seems like a good time for introductions." What followed was a stream of introductions and she was concerned if she could actually remember them all but Leon noticed and told her not to worry about it.

"So, as a human, would you like to know why we, a horde of vampires, are fine with you and aren't attacking you or something?" Her eyes flickered to Leon, who had asked the question. It somewhat scared her. The fear reflected in her eyes.

"Damn, don't worry. It wasn't a threat or anything. I assumed you were curious." Lily gently nodded and Leon had a proud look on this face.

"Well, honestly, we don't really need human blood. We really just need blood. Not human specifically. It's just that human blood is of the best kind. Unless an adequate reason arises, most vampires don't really care enough to hunt people or anything. Of course there are exceptions since human blood increases a vampires abilities and all. But other than that, we just want to, y'know, live. Those humans who found out about us just started waging war just because we were vampires. We don't really care other than that And like, we don't really have any personal enmity with you and you seem nice, so yeah."

That was quite the lengthy explanation but it really made sense. From Leon's words, the thing she could make out was that vampires just hated humans who would harass them and try killing them. It really made everything make sense. The war, all the slaughter. Humans attacked first. They needed to make sure that they would be safe. Besides, the common folk were excluded from said war and though they were taken as captives and such, here she was actually living.

Granted, the punishments were extreme but she knew for a fact that most of the punishments were administered by the humans themselves and that their jurisdiction was merely influenced by themselves.

She really found it ridiculous how humans were the villains for both humans and vampires. And they even tried to make out vampires as unholy creatures.

"Shit, the mood got gloomy as fuck. Let's do something else? Oh! Lily, can you cook?" Lily was taken aback by the random question. She did nod however.

"Ah, lucky me~ There were some human dishes I really wanted to try. You see, the major loss of the part of vampires is probably cuisine. Some don't care but I'll be lying if I said I didn't want to commit murder just so I could steal some human food at times. The smell is just exquisite~ So, can you bake a meat pie? I promise I'll do anything!"